


Wastelanders

by anneapocalypse



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: F/F, Gen, Little Lamplight, M/M, Megaton, Rivet City
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-22
Updated: 2012-09-22
Packaged: 2017-12-09 10:01:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/772933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anneapocalypse/pseuds/anneapocalypse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of Fallout 3 shortfic, mostly written for tumblr prompts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. See You on the Road

**Author's Note:**

> The Lone Wanderer would like to be more deeply invested in Wolfgang's junk.

He had a policy of  _not_  assuming that people were flirting with him, even in the face of what might seem to be contradictory evidence. It was just that, well, he’d been disappointed, or outright embarrassed himself, a few too many times. So he’s still not sure what on this ruined earth got into him when that handsome, shaggy-haired merchant with sharp gray eyes and  _the most beautiful jawline_  arched an eyebrow at him and remarked with a soft smirk, “So you’re the one who’s so deeply invested in my junk, huh?”

Maybe it was those eyes.

In any case, he felt his own mouth quirk into a smile, heard himself say, “I could be  _more_  deeply invested, you know,” before he was even conscious of  _deciding to say that._  Goddamn it. The part of him with reservations woke up  _right then,_  thirty seconds too late, and started screaming that this would not end well and if it didn’t end well there was no one for a hundred miles who could do decent leather repair and his armor would rot and he would be eaten by yao guai and all because he was a sucker for a beautiful tanned jawline shadowed with day-old stubble.

That part of him shut up when Wolfgang’s grin widened and he took a step closer and said, “Is that so?”

Whatever he’d expected to come of that, being pressed between Wolfgang’s hot weight and the grimy wall behind the old garage in Canterbury Commons, face twisted to one side with stubble chafing against his own jaw and hot breaths burning against his neck and heavy wordless panting mingling with his own and broad, calloused hands gripping his hips as Wolfgang drove into him fast and hard and perfect, was far more than he could’ve hoped for.

And as wonderful as that all was, somehow the best part of it all was the grin Wolfgang tossed him as he was zipping up his pants and saying warmly, “See you out on the road, huh?”


	2. Common Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mei shares a quiet moment with her girlfriend in Rivet City.

“You think she’ll do it?” Mei says quietly, resting her head against Victoria’s shoulder and curling a hand over her thigh, splaying pale fingers across her warm dark skin where her skirt’s rucked up. “What you asked?”  
  
“Said she would.” Victoria doesn’t sound convinced. They’ve claimed a corner in the side room off the common sleeping area, and with no one around they’ve got a few moments alone, but Victoria’s preoccupied, brown eyes distant and fingers fidgeting on Mei’s shoulder.  
  
Mei shifts her head lower, the motion loosening her scarf. She reaches up to tug it off, and Victoria strokes her hair as it tumbles free.  
  
“I think she’ll do it,” Mei says quietly, a little hesitantly. “She—she didn’t turn me in. She gave me caps for a gun…”  
  
“It’s not the same thing to everyone,” Victoria says, and Mei swallows back a sigh. They’ve had that argument, more than once, and she just doesn’t have the energy right now to have it again. Victoria shifts, looks down at Mei, and her eyes soften as she caresses her cheek. “Let’s not talk about it anymore.”


	3. Some Kind of Experiment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> F!LW/Moira. For [magicmoloko](Http://magicmoloko.tumblr.com).

Kitty cocks her head to the side and crosses her arms over her leather vest. “So… this is some kind of experiment?”

“Well, sort of!” Moira grins hopefully, clasping her greasy hands together. “After all, if we’re going to rebuild society, we have to rebuild social conventions, right? Like… well… dating!”

It’s all Kitty can do to suppress the grin threatening to creep across her face. Ah, but Moira’s sweet. An odd bird, as Dad would’ve said—Daddy would love Moira, Kitty’s sure of it—but her heart’s the size of the sun and from the first day Kitty staggered dusty and bewildered into her little town, Moira’s done a whole lot to make her feel at home. And her experiments may be ridiculous, but knowing somebody’s going to be genuinely happy to see you when you return after a tough mission—well, that counts for a lot out here.

Kitty scuffs her combat boot against the shop floor. “You’re asking me out on a date?”

“Oh, no, silly!  _You’d_  be asking  _me_  out on a date!”

Oh. Well, that clears things up.

Moira’s still talking, just fast enough Kitty can hear a touch of nervousness under her usual exuberant chatter. “You know… carhops, milkshakes, dancing to the jukebox! I’ve seen it in books! Ooh, I’ve always wanted to learn how to dance!”

Kitty laughs. “Dancing,huh? I doubt I’ll be much use for that.” Dances in the Vault usually amounted to her and Amata hiding from the boys and sneaking cookies from the refreshment table back to their rooms for later.  _Gracefulness_ has never really been Kitty’s strong point.

But Moira’s undaunted. “Well, then we’ll learn together! I’ve got just the dress for it, too!”

Kitty’s eyebrows shoot up. “A dress? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you out of your jumpsuit.” And with smudges on her face and grime under her fingernails and her hair tied messily back and Kitty’s always thought her perfectly adorable just that way and it hadn’t ever quite occurred to her to imagine Moira in a dress, and she’s sufficiently distracted by the thought that it takes her few moment to realize the joke she’s left open, but Moira, being Moira, breezes right past it in typical fashion.

“Well, I couldn’t work in it or I’d ruin it now wouldn’t I? It’s just a nice pink pre-war number, but it’s hardly stained at all!” Her green eyes are bright and hopeful and Kitty breaks into a smile.

“How about a night at the Lantern, then? Don’t think they serve milkshakes but we’ll make do.” Kitty winks. “I’ll swing by and pick you up at eight.”


	4. Hold On to Your Hat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kenny + OC. When a former Lamplighter finds a boy living alone in a mine on Point Lookout, she decides to find him a new home.

Hold on to your hat, she says, and so he does, and it’s a good thing too, because just as the ferry gets moving a giant gust of wind blows up and would knock it clean off his head if he wasn’t hanging on to the brim.

He takes it off, to be safe, holding it at his side, and then he has a thought, and he takes Kenny-Bear out from under his other arm, and stuffs him into the hat just enough so he can see over the brim, and holds the hat against his chest with both hands so Kenny-Bear can watch too, as the bell rings clear and cold in the foggy air and they draw away from the landing.

A hand rests on his shoulder. The hand of the lady in the black leather vest, the lady with the long black hair. The lady who found Kenny Bear down the mine, who played hide-and-seek with him, who offered to take him to a place where he won’t have to live alone anymore. A place where there are other kids like him.

Far away, she said. A long boat ride away. If you go, it’s for good. So think about it.

He’d thought about it.

He’s still thinking about it, even now as the landing melts into the fog that presses in from all sides.

He shivers.

What if they don’t like me? he says.

Her hand squeezes his shoulder. Don’t worry, she says. They will.


	5. Ghost Stories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rivet City kids getting up to no good.

“Guys, guys, wait up, hang on.” Bryan trails anxiously behind CJ and James in the corridor. “I don’t think we’re supposed to go here.”

“Bullshit,” James says, “I go where I want.”

Bryan turns to CJ, who shrugs. “My mom didn’t say I can’t go here, so that means I can.”

James turns the wheel on the door and pushes. The door swings open with a metallic creak, just like any other door in Rivet City, only behind it -

Daylight.

They creep out one by one, first James, then CJ, then Bryan. There’s plenty enough deck for them to stand on before it breaks off in curling steel and twisted girders. And across a stretch of green water far below them - the rest of the ship. Cross-sectioned raggedly, girders torn like shoelaces, decks and cabins and corridors opened like rows of giant metal cubbies. It makes Bryan shiver.

The broken bow.

They all look for a long moment.

“It’s haunted over there, you know,” says CJ gleefully.

“Oh shut up,” says James.

“It is! Folks say if you go up that walkway to the locked door in the side, you can still hear him clanking around inside.”

“Bullshit,” says James.

“Who?” Bryan asks.

CJ grins, eyes sparkling in the early afternoon sun. “The ghost of Old Man Pinkerton,” she says dramatically. “Exiled from Rivet City by the Council for performing horrible experiments on ordinary citizens. Now he haunts the broken bow, still looking for people to steal away-“

“You’re fulla shit.” James rolls his eyes. “It’s just ‘lurks down there.”

Bryan inches a little closer to the edge, fighting the instinct to flatten himself against the wall. He doesn’t look down but across, scanning the exposed spaces. Places, rooms that were once inside, tucked deep in the heart of the ship, torn open and left there for hundreds of years. It gives him such a weird feeling he can’t stop looking.

“What if it is Old Man Pinkerton?”

James snorts. “Ghosts aren’t real, Bry.”

“Are so,” says CJ.

“No, I mean-” Bryan tears his eyes away from the broken ship to eye the little walkway curving from the rocky shoreline to that single door in the side of the bow. “What if he’s still alive?”

“No way,” says CJ. “That was years and  _years_  ago.”

James rolls his eyes again. “You’re both losers. I’m bored. Let’s do something else.”


End file.
